23rd April, 1894 — Borgin and Burke's

Livi was asleep again.

There was a strong possibility that she had been asleep for longer than she had been awake since the day she had come squalling into the world and Trixie had every intention of keeping it that way. The cordial had been her mother's suggestion - Trixie had been mildly offended at the thought of it being used on her - but it was effective and meant she could carry on quite as she had before.

Assuming she could find someone to do it with her that was. It had been months, no, maybe it had been a year already? Last summer, when she had found out that she was carrying a child she had, quite rightly, assumed that no man would want any part of the grim things happening inside her and she had begun avoiding Kristoffer. It was one thing for her husband to see her get huge and ungainly but she had some pride left: so Kris had to go. For a while at least.

Everything was back in working order now - she had even let Claude fuck her to make sure, though it had hardly scratched the itch she was reaching for - and she had sent a letter to Kris, casually suggesting he should come to the shop, you'll like what you find. And now she was waiting like a fool, wondering idly whether anyone else in Knockturn Alley was worth her time and then, the bell.

"You took your time," she said, by way of greeting.

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Kristoffer Lestrange | Elias Grimstone

  

Well, she had some nerve. Kris hadn’t depended on her for anything – although she had always been a good distraction from everything else – but if things had fizzled out in any regard, he had always imagined he would be the one to call things off. Better things to be doing, better people – perhaps if he had finally seduced (corrupted; whichever) Poppy, all his frustrations would have fallen away.

But he hadn’t ruined their friendship and her reputation so far as that yet, so when the letter came from Mrs. Burke he was... tempted, still.

He wasn’t sure he wanted her to think so, so he came in wary, scrutinising her from a distance to decide what had prompted this sudden summons. “Be glad I came at all,” Kris retorted. “I’m not at your beck and call.”

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Aren’t you, she thought as her lip curled with pleasure at the sight of him. He looked precisely as he had a year ago and she had scoured the rags for days to make sure there had been no one seen with him of note; if he had another lover like her she didn’t much care, but the thought that he would eventually do better galled her to her very core.

“Then why are you here?” She replied, slipping around the counter to get a better look at him and show herself off. Through the pregnancy she had lost weight, if anything, and though Claude had dared to suggest she looked gaunt she thought she looked finer than ever. Her mother had tonics for this too, as it turned out.

“Have you missed me?” I’ve missed you.

  

Why was he here, exactly? Kristoffer hadn’t deigned to think too much about his doings – and he certainly didn’t answer to her. “Call it morbid curiosity,” he tossed back, with a quick arch of his brows.

(Truthfully, he did have a peculiar store of fondness for Beatrix Burke that even a lengthy leave of absence had not erased.)

“I hardly remembered what you look like,” Kris added, no; he hadn’t meant it (he certainly hadn’t forgotten what she felt like, her body pressed up against his) but he did wonder whether there was some merit in the comment: she looked different than he remembered. Thinner and yet somehow more filled out; she was holding herself a little differently. He wasn’t sure. “So,” he drawled, tapping his fingers idly on the countertop so as not to allow himself to sound any shred of interested, “what’s new?”

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